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Wednesday 21 August 2019

Gruß aus Salzburg im Jahre 2000 sendet

Following on the theme of Germany in the year 2000, the following lithograph purports to show the city of Salzburg 100 years after its date of publication. Once more we see the preoccupation with air travel especially, and the colonization of the future with the aesthetics of the present. Click on the picture for a larger version. 


Wednesday 7 August 2019

Deutschland im Jahre 2000

In January 1900, the German chocolate company Hildebrands placed these depictions of the Fatherland in the year 2000 in packages of cocoa and chocolates. Like En L'An 2000 and Moscow in the XXIII Century, these cards depict the usual turn of the century ambitions: airships, submarines, covered cities, television, and improved security. The overriding theme is bringing the hitherto unobtainable into the everyday. Aerial travel becomes everyday, and can even be used to venture to impenetrable locales like the Arctic. The oceans become accessible, and what isn't directly accessible is observable through mass media. So, in many ways, we are living in the golden age of Victorian futurism... I just wish it looked as good as these cards.